Limericks (1903)

THE origin of the term Limerick, as applied to a certain form of five-line stanza, seems to be as yet undiscovered. A statement was recently made that this stanza is so-called because it was invented by Edward Lear, and that he was born in Limerick, Ireland.

But Mr. Lear was born in London, and furthermore, he emphatically disclaims the credit of having created the type, and says that it was suggested to him by a friend as a form of verse lending itself to a limitless variety of humorous rhymes. Another suggestion offered is that the first stanza of the kind referred to the town of Limerick. This can scarcely be true, for the type dates back many centuries, although the title is of comparatively recent application.

Another explanation, and possibly the true one, is that a witty Irishman of Limerick made this particular form of stanza popular in political squibs. But whatever the origin of the title, it has been rapidly and widely accepted and fills a positive want.

The earliest known examples of the stanza are found in Halliwell’s collection of English Nursery Rhymes, among a large mass of jingling folk-lore, to which it is impossible to ascribe definite dates, but which was current about the fifteenth or sixteenth century.

The first line of these stanzas is usually a string of meaningless words which also forms a refrain at the last. A well-known one is:—

Diddledy, diddledy, dumpty!
The cat ran up the plum-tree;
Half a crown
To fetch her down,
Diddledy, diddledy, dumpty.

Another very ancient specimen is:—

Upon my word and honor,
As I was going to Bonner,
Without a wig,
I met a pig
Upon my word and honor.

But these lack the distinguishing trait of the modern Limerick, which is a first line stating the existence of a certain person in a definite place.

So far as may be verified, the oldest of these are also found among the “Mother Goose” rhymes, collected by Halliwell.

There was an old man of Tobago,
Who lived upon rice, gruel and sago;
Till, much to his bliss,
His physician said this:
“To a leg, sir, of mutton, you may go.”

There was an old soldier of Bister,
Went walking one day with his sister;
When a cow, at one poke,
Tossed her into an oak,
Before the old gentleman missed her.

After these, the earliest Limerick of positive and authenticated date, is one current in an English public school in 1834:—

There was a young man of St. Kitts
Who was very much troubled with fits;
The eclipse of the moon
Threw him into a swoon,
When he tumbled and broke into bits.

In 1846 Edward Lear published his first collection of “Nonsense Rhymes,” which, though not called Limericks, are all written in that form.

Aside from their first-rate nonsense, the distinguishing qualities of Mr. Lear’s Limericks are their coined words and their rhymes to difficult geographical names:—

There was an Old Man of Aôsta,
Who possessed a large cow, but he lost her;
But they said, “Don’t you see,
She has run up a tree,
You invidious Old Man of Aôsta?”

There was a Young Person of Crete,
Whose toilette was far from complete;
She dressed in a sack
Spickle-speckled with black,
That ombliferous Person of Crete.

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, “It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen, Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in mv beard.”

There was an Old Man of Apulia,
Whose conduct was very peculiar;
He fed twenty sons upon nothing but buns,
That whimsical Man of Apulia.

I,ear’s verses were followed, in 1864, by two books full of Limericks, which were privately published and sold for the benefit of the New York Fair in aid of the Sanitary Commission.

A few of these rhymes are here given:—

There was a Young Lady of Lynn
Whose waist was so charmingly thin,
The dressmaker needed
A microscope, she did,
To fit this Young Lady of Lynn.

There was an Old Man who said, “How
Am I going to carry my cow?
For if I should ask it
To get in my basket,
‘Twould make such a terrible row.”

There was an Old Man who said, “Do
Tell me how I’m to add two and two.
I am not quite sure
That it doesn’t make four,
But I fear that is almost too few.”

Among English authors of Limericks may be mentioned the late Cosmo Monkhouse, who published a book of them, of which we subjoin two:—

There was an Old Person of Benin,
Whose clothes weren’t fit to be seen in;
When told that he shouldn’t,
He replied, “Gumscrumrudent!”
A word of inscrutable meaning.

There once was an Old Man of Lyme
Who married three wives at a time.
When asked, “Why the third?”
He replied, “One’s absurd,
And bigamy, sir, is a crime.”

Walter Parke is responsible for the next.

There was a young man who was bitten
By twenty-two cats and a kitten;
Sighed he, “It is clear
My finish is near—
No matter; I’ll die like a Briton.”

There once was a baby of yore,
But no one knew what it was for;
And being afraid
It might be mislaid,
They put it away in a drawer.

The only Limerick that Rudyard Kipling is known to have written is the oft-quoted:—

There was a small boy of Quebec,
Who was buried in snow to his neck;
When asked, “Are you friz?”
He replied, “Yes, I is;
But we don’t call this cold in Quebec.”

Another well-known one is W. S. Gilbert’s “Nonsense-Rhyme in Blank Verse.”

There was an Old Man of St. Bees
Who was stung in the arm by a wasp.
When asked, “Does it hurt?”
He replied, “No, it doesn’t,
But I thought all the while ’twas a hornet.”

This is said to have been inspired by Edward Lear’s

There was an Old Man in a tree
Who was horribly bored by a bee;
When they said, “Does it buzz?”
He replied, “Yes, it does!
It’s a regular brute of a Bee.”

George du Manner wrote many Limericks in French under the name of ” Vers Nonsensiques.”